Recycling services expanded in Omaha, Nebraska

RecycleBank™, a rewards program that motivates people to recycle, has begun service to households in the Omaha, Nebraska area and has seen a more than 100 percent increase in recycling in one month.

Through a relationship with Elkhorn Sanitation Service (ESS) and Firstar Fiber, RecycleBank will continue to rollout its program to several thousand homes in the area during the next few months.

ESS has teamed up with Firstar Fiber, the single-stream recycling facility in Omaha. Together, these two companies are enabling ESS households in West Omaha, Papillion, LaVista, Gretna, Elkhorn and Bennington, Nebraska, to participate in the RecycleBank program. ESS is providing participating households with a 96 gallon recycling cart, outfitted with an RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) tag that allows RecycleBank to track the total weight and participation of households’ recycling. Within the first month of participation, households have more than doubled the amount of recyclables from 22 pounds per household to 47 pounds per household.

For RecycleBank, this expansion to the Midwest marks the beginning of the company’s rapid growth outside of its roots in the East Coast.

Currently, RecycleBank is in more than 75 municipalities throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Nebraska, Virginia, New York and New Jersey. To date, RecycleBank households have already diverted more than 36 million tons of recyclables from landfills, saved 24 million gallons of oil and more than 360,000 trees.